Stronghold Crusader Extreme is hard to recommend even to diehard fans of this RTS series.

You can't go home again. That's the lesson of Stronghold Crusader Extreme, a revamping of Firefly Studios' classic 2002 real-time strategy game Stronghold Crusader. This minor reimagining of an oldie but goodie is several years late for the party, a real-time relic based on antiquated game mechanics and production values. It doesn't even add much in the way of new old-fashioned game content; it simply goes after hardcore fans of the original game with a new Extreme Trail mode of play that takes you up a ladder of impossibly murderous medieval skirmishes.

Stronghold Crusader Extreme Free Download PC Game Full Version

As with most RTS games from earlier in the decade, the skirmish maps in the 20-mission Extreme Trail campaign are all about speed, not strategy. The winner is always the one who can click the quickest, which makes matches play out more like fast-forwarded street brawls than real military engagements. This is actually one of the zippiest RTS games of all time, and spectacularly tough when compared to the nonextreme trail campaign in the original Stronghold Crusader. The pace has been so amped up and the maps so packed with enemies that the combat is frenzied and chaotic.

Expect to be toast early and often if you don't have some heavy playtime with the first game under your belt. Even with this experience (which you can gain here because you get the complete original game along with the supposedly new one), it's amazingly tough to emerge victorious from even a single one of the scenarios. Multiple enemies target you in all but the very first campaign mission, and this array of foes kicks off every match by immediately hurling columns of troops at your puny little village.

Maps cram all of the factions into such close quarters that it's impossible to get started on a reasonable army before the onslaught begins. Enemy armies are typically coming over the hill within no more than a minute or two from the start of a game. It's hard to figure out what you're supposed to do to stop these assaults, given that you're always stuck battling these massive forces with just the handful of knights and archers that you start with.

You have the option of dropping in companies of spearmen and macemen on the fly at timed intervals, and can erect walls to somewhat stem the tide, but this seems to only delay the inevitable as steams of enemy columns constantly rush toward your keep. All you're ever doing is keeping your head above water, not building enough strength to take the fight to the enemy. Only someone who has just stepped out of a time machine will have much patience for Stronghold Crusader Extreme. Aged, formulaic, and spectacularly difficult, the game isn't remotely appealing to a modern RTS audie.